5.  The applicant was born in 1939 and lived in Melitopol.
6.  In 1996 a Moldovan national transferred his car to the applicant and issued a power of attorney granting the applicant broad rights in respect of the car including, inter alia, the right to drive and to sell it. The Moldovan national, however, remained the owner of the car.
7.  The applicant did not pay customs clearance for importing the car from a foreign country. In order to comply with the requirements of domestic customs law, the applicant returned across the Ukrainian border every third month, declaring the car as newly imported and giving an undertaking to re-export it within the following three-month period.
8.  In October 1998 the applicant was unable to undertake his regular trip outside Ukraine because of health problems. On 2 June 1999 the applicant attempted to cross the border with his car. However, the customs officer, having noted that the three-month re-export period was substantially overdue, seized the car pending adjudication of the applicant’s administrative offence.
9.  On 24 June 1999 the Primorskyy District Court of Mariupol (hereafter “the District Court”) found the applicant guilty of a customs offence, fined him 74 Ukrainian hryvnas (UAH) and ordered the confiscation of the car.
10.  On 27 August 1999 the Primorskyy District Prosecutor, at the applicant’s request, lodged with the District Court a protest, seeking to open the extraordinary review proceedings in the applicant’s case.
11.  On 14 October 1999 the District Court, by way of extraordinary review, adopted a judgment by which it quashed the fine as being time-barred, while leaving the confiscation order in force.
12.  On 16 March 2000 the car was sold by public auction at the price of UAH 7,970 in the course of the enforcement of the judgment of 24 June 1999. The funds received from the sale were transferred to the State budget.
13.  On 23 October 2000 the President of the Donetsk Regional Court, on a request by the applicant for extraordinary review, reopened the proceedings in the applicant’s case and quashed the judgments of 24 June 1999 and 14 October 1999, finding, in particular, that under the Constitution the car could not be confiscated from the applicant as he had not been its owner.
14.  On 16 March 2001 the applicant brought a claim in the Starokyivskyy District Court against the Ministry of Justice and the Customs Office, seeking recovery of the confiscated car or reimbursement of its value and compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
15.  On 10 April 2001 the court left the claim unexamined on account of the applicant’s failure to comply with procedural requirements, stating, inter alia, that the applicant failed to provide any calculation of the non-pecuniary damage and to enclose the documents for the car.
16.  By letters of 12 April 2001, 10 October 2001, 19 March 2002 the Customs Office confirmed to the applicant that he could be reimbursed the value of the confiscated car upon finalisation of procedural formalities.
17.  On 25 April 2002 the President of the Supreme Court, upon a request by the Customs Office for extraordinary review, reopened the proceedings in the applicant’s case and, relying on Article 294 of the Code on Administrative Offences, quashed the judgment of 23 October 2000 in the applicant’s favour as unfounded, thereby upholding the District Court’s judgments of 24 June and 14 October 1999. The judgment provided, inter alia, that under customs law, which was applicable in the applicant’s case, confiscation was to be ordered irrespective of whether the applicant had been the owner of the car or not.
18.  By a letter of 6 August 2004 from the Customs Office the applicant was informed about the judgment of 25 April 2002 and served with a copy of it. The applicant alleged that he had not previously been aware of the judgment.